COUNTRY LIFE
SOME sort of aesthetic controversy seems to have arisen around the oak panels, friezes and pendants that are to adorn the newly repaired House of Commons. After spending a number of hours in the work- shops where the wood is prepared and carved and in some sort selected, I must agree with the architect and those craftsmen who carry out his scheme. We are, of course, used to admiring oak that is of the deepest brown, if not black, and I would not accept as wholly legitimate the once popular trick of bleaching it with lime ; but the newer method' touches neither extreme. The panels are sprayed, not smeared, with an iron sulphate, which preserves rather than bleaches, while it seemed, to my eyes at least, to give a certain distinctness TO the pattern of the grain. Oak when first cut is not very dark, and there is a great deal to be said in favour of a light panel over a dark. Would anyone ever paper or paint with deep brown a room in which he desired to avoid falling into a brown study or losing cheerfulness? In any case, whether natural or only semi-natural, the wood is of a singularly pleasing colour, and is assured a green old age.
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